Prof. Dr. TÜRKKAYA ATAÖV

An
international conference took place recently at the University of
Lausanne (Switzerland) on the “rebellious” theme of “One
Democratic State in Israel/Palestine”, in which I also participated. A
declaration following the three-day deliberations stated that some
prominent Israelis, Palestinians, other Arabs and speakers from various
corners of the world discussed the chronic conflict, with an emphasis on
the option of one-state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean to
serve the full political, economic and securty interests of the Jews,
Muslim and Christian Arabs and all the restnow residing in both states. The participants agreed that
eventually one democratic and secular state may well be the best vehicle
to achieve a lasting peace.

Is this idea new? Not entirely. A number of distinguished Jews,
Arabs and others had indicated, even in the early decades of the 20th
century, that an Israeli state, then made up of a minority of the
population but open to waves of Jewish settlers from outside, planted in
the heart of an Arab majority would only causealienation, enmity, bloodshed and wars. The early suggestions for
one-state embracing all inhabitants is now re-emerging as a possible
solution in some future date, as a reaction to the dramatic events since
1947.

There must have been some motivation, even a rationale, behind
the alternative suggestion of the one-state formula that expressed
itself anew only a few weeks ago. Why have scholars, writers,
journalists and activists, some 200 largely well-known figures from all
over the world including far away places such as Australia, Canada or
South Africa met in the auditorium of a prestigious Eurpean academic
center to consider what many will describe as a “radical”
alternative?

I do not intend to scrutinize here the whole of the Palestine
question, on which I have published rather voluminously since the 1967
War. But a few comments relative to the motivations of the Lausanne
meeting may be well-timed. Certain facts of the past and the present may
be instructive to understand the full options of the future.

The United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 (1947)
envisaged for the historic land of Palestine an Arab and a Jewish state
as well as a temporary international regime for Jerusaleöm. The
town of Jaffa was to form an Arab enclave within Jewish territory, and
steps were set out dealing with citizenship, transit, an economic union
and free access to holy places along with religious and minority rights

The General Assembly resolutions, on the other hand, are only
recommendations with no legally binding force. Moreover, the
Palestinians were never consulted, and the final voting, just a bare
minimum for Partition, was influenced by the undue influence surrounding
the approaching American presidential elections of 1948. The U.N.
Charter does not convey any authority to the General Assembly to create
some sovereign entities or to deny sovereign rights to some others. If
the voting.on the draft resolution seeking advisory opinion from the
International Court of Justice would have been the other way around,
instead of 21 to 20 rejecting the move, many breathtaking dramas, such
as acquisition land through war and repetitive waves of displaced
Palestinians, of the later periods could have been avoided.

Decades, punctuated by violence, passed when the Madrid
“peace process” and the Oslo agreements of 1993 and 1995 were
reached. The latter were concluded, nevertheless, when an independent
Arab position in international affairs had been completely lost, and the
Palestinians were deprived even the narrow margin of political action.
Although the Palestinian leadership eventually recognized the Israeli
entity, the Oslo accords do not make any reference to the General
Assembly resolutions where the Palestinian right of self-determination
has been explicitly mentioned. In contrast to the Palestinian
acknowledgement of the existence of Israel, the Oslo agreements seem to
deliberately avoid any unambigious reference to Palestinian
self-determination. The latter’s National Authority is expected to
remain under the illegitimate control of the occupying power. Fictitious
sovereignty did not work in the South African so-called “homelands”;
it can pacify neither the Palestinian people, nor world public opinion.

It is no wonder, then, that the world witnesses in agonysieges of Palestinian public buildings, indiscriminate assaults
from tanks, helicopters and military watchtowers, assassinations of
selected targets, growing number of civilian victims on both sides,
suicide bombings, burnt down agricultural complexes, devestated
livestocks, destroyed crops, bulldozered water wells, uprooted trees,
arrest campaigns, prolonged detentions, and a new concrete separation
wall with deep ditches and high-voltage electric fences snaking into
Palestinian-owned lands. The Arabs lived and worked in peaceful
coexistence with Jews and others during the Ottoman period of more than
400 years with no bloosdshed whatsoever on this same land.

Presently, there occur repeated statements from the
high-ranking decision-makers of adverseries that Chairman Y. Arafat
should abandon his official position and, more dramatically, that he is
the “next target” apparently to be assassinated. The person in
question happens to be the leader of his people and possesses certain
inalienable rights including the right to live. Some Israelis in the
ruling circles are also up in clouds on a premise of expelling all
Palestinians, who are not going to abandon their homes this time.

An international conference on the idea of “One Democratic
State”, as it took place in the heart of Europe, should be regarded as
reasonable under the circumstances that has been drifting for the last
57 years. If there is going to be a repressive state on the 78 percent
of the Palestinian land, which is now described by some commentators as
the only “apartheid” entity left in the world, a second alternative
of a single democratic and secular regime in the combined lands of
Israel and Palestine, whatever the governmental structure may be, does
not sound irrational and untimely. If discrimination and subjugationcontinue, this one-state movement stands to become eventually
popular with the Jewish and the Arab peoples, who will more and more
visualize a peaceful future of mutual acceptance and cohabitation.